The present embodiments relate to beta emission imaging. Beta ray emission imaging is used to study the distribution of labeled biological tracers in plant tissues, animal tissues, or other tissue samples.
Beta emission imaging has several limitations. The spatial resolution, and resulting utility, of beta emission imaging is limited by the detector. The tissue of the sample may be thicker in some places than others or include materials that attenuate the beta emissions differently prior to reaching the detector. This variable attenuation or self-absorption may cause errors in the interpretation of the detected intensity or counts.
Improving spatial resolution has primarily been addressed by constructing beta detectors with higher density readout capabilities. This approach has technological limitations. It is further limited by the isotropic emission of beta rays and their finite range in matter (e.g., on the order of 1 mm or greater at 1 g/cm3), particularly if higher energy betas are used to see through thicker layers of tissue.